EU’s Clout Lies East, Not South

For much of this year, Europe’s politicians and Brussels’ bureaucrats have been fixated on events to the south of the European Union — from the popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt to the repression and violence in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

Stung by the appearance that Europe’s leaders had grown cozy with regional dictators and incapable of promoting democratic change, Europeans rushed to show how excited they were by the winds of change blowing through the region.

Reuters

A passenger walks past a European Union sign at the border crossing with Croatia.

In the EU’s capital, Europe’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton promised a radical overhaul of relations with North Africa’s burgeoning democracies. “More for more” was the slogan as the EU sought to regain its position as a key regional player by promising financial assistance and other help to nations that genuinely embraced democratic change.

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Yet as the hopeful Arab spring has turned into a messier Middle Eastern summer, it looks increasingly as if the EU’s ability to forge change remains much more effective on its eastern border than down south.

In North Africa, the U.K. and French continue to lead an inconclusive military engagement against Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi while the imposition of sanctions on Syrian officials has done nothing to bring a change in behavior from Syrian President Bashar Al-assad.

The much-hyped revamp of relations looked less radical when it was finally delivered (several weeks late) in late May. While an extra €1.2 billion was promised for Europe’s neighbors over the next two years and the European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have promised to ramp up projects in North Africa’s democracies, the EU remains a peripheral player in the streets of Cairo and Tunis.

By contrast, the EU seems to be having more driving real change in the Balkans.

The Commission announced Friday it had wrapped up accession talks with Croatia, a move that paves the way for the East European nation to become the EU’s 28th member in July 2013. If that happens — it must still be approved by a referendum in Croatia and ratified by all 27 EU member states — Croatia will become a fully-fledged member of the EU just 18 years after the end of a bloody, protracted Balkans war that left 20,000 Croats dead.

The EU’s relations with Serbia have also taken a sharp upward turn in recent months, with the pro-EU Tadic government last month removing a major obstacle to EU membership with the arrest and extradition of war crimes suspect and former Bosnian-Serb commander Ratko Mladic. The EU has also been hosting reconciliation talks between Serbia and Kosovo.

In a press conference Friday to announce the Croatian accession advance, European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle said there was the “prospect” of the commission advising member states to formally open accession talks with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and other Balkan nations later this year. One of those other nations is Serbia, commission officials say.

As Greece, Ireland and Portugal know, EU membership is no panacea. The accession talks involved painful compromises for Zagreb and would no doubt mean likewise in Serbia. But the prospect of bringing Serbia, Croatia and other Balkan nations within the EU fold, in the eyes of many observers, would be a major step to promote stability and prosperity in the region.

Comments (2 of 2)

It can be said EU membership hastened these countries financial implosion by encouraging a "pass the Euro" mentality. Before EU membership, financial irresponsibility was naturally constrained by the limitations of their isolated economies and governments. After EU membership, it was easy to indulge in the "we're members of the EU" excuse to leverage themselves beyond their means. Bankers, never missing an opportunity to make a Euro without regard to their stockholders, made, let us say, "unwise" loans to those countries' businesses.

Now the bankers are rich and some government ministers are more "comfortable" while the EU taxpayer is left footing the bill. Gee, sounds almost like the USA.

12:08 am June 11, 2011

mario wrote:

The EU is nothing more then a club of hypocritical european crooks, Champagne Socialist, Communist and moral paupers. Shame on you and your petty threats and blackmails we can live nice in Croatia with no community to which you belong to.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Brussels blog is produced by the Brussels bureau of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. The bureau has been headed since 2009 by Stephen Fidler, who was previously a correspondent and editor for the Financial Times and Reuters. Also posting regularly: Matthew Dalton, Viktoria Dendrinou, Tom Fairless, Naftali Bendavid, Laurence Norman, Gabriele Steinhauser and Valentina Pop.